Southeast

On May 20, just before the Supreme Court will definitively close the door to the aspirations of irrigators to maintain the Tajo-Segura transfer as until now, the spokesperson for the Junta de Castilla – La Mancha He stood in front of the media and said it: water cannot be limited to the irrigators of the region while in the Levant “it is watered freely”, he came to say. That’s the gossip, but that’s not the news. The news is that, 47 years after the inauguration of the transfer and after a decade of judicial conflictthe battle for the water of the Tagus returns to the negotiating table. Not because of ecological flows; That (barring a surprise) has already been decided: he has returned to the table because the most difficult thing remains. Say who pays the bill. Whose water is it? Because that is the heart of the matter and where Castilla – La Mancha is wrong. As I have explained the Supremethe arguments of the Central Union of Irrigators of the Tajo-Segura Aqueduct do not apply, precisely, because it is not about taking water from ‘someone’ to give it to another ‘someone’. The ecological flows (which taxes come by the jurisprudence of the same court and by the EU directive) cannot have “a use character, and must be considered as a restriction that is generally imposed on exploitation systems.” The problem is that these flows represent, according to the technical reports, a water loss of around 40% for the irrigators of the east. Irrigators who, let us remember, have the right to that water according to the current transfer rules, who have made investments and have built businesses (‘livelihoods’) counting on that water that the State had granted them. Rules that do not apply. Due to the court battle, the new flows have not come into force and, at this time, the old rules continue to be used to send water to the Segura basin. In fact, for the April-June quarter There are 180hm3 authorized (a much larger amount than would correspond to the new standard). And the irrigators are nervous. With sense, too: the Administrations’ alternative (desalination) is lost in combat. And, in any case, that is water is between three and ten times more expensive. This is important because (as explained by the Community of Irrigators of Campo de Cartagena) “The irrigable surface has not expanded by one square meter since 2017“. It is no longer a question that without water they cannot grow; it is a question that without water they cannot “maintain what we already cultivate.” And that would lead us to a more than considerable industrial reconversion throughout the region. But there doesn’t seem to be any other solution. Because, as we see, the cuts are due to legal imperative. The administrations have little else to do: they have already been delaying the application of ecological flows for years and the situation has not improved one bit. It doesn’t mean that all this is over. It is likely that the Union will appeal to the European Court, but the reorientation of the agrarian model in the southeast cannot be extended if we want it to remain alive. That is to say: the hour of truth arrives. For decades, politicians have been passing the buck without taking the necessary measures (no matter how painful they may be). That is the economic, ecological and social bill that we are paying now. The only reasonable question is whether we have learned our lesson. Image | David Algas Oroquieta In Xataka | The Tagus reservoirs have reached their maximum level. The response of the authorities has been to empty them immediately